Artists respond to tragedy

In the case of five Gippsland artists, it was the ability to create which got them through a rather dark period.

The Black Saturday fires have affected people in many different ways and everyone has their own way of coping.

For artists Werner and Ursula Theinert, Kerrie Warren, Leonie Ryan and Peter Biram, coming to terms with the magnitude of the event meant an outpouring of emotions onto canvas and into metal and ceramics.

Their work has been brought together under the banner of Fields of View, an exhibition now on at the Maffra Art Space depicting their perpective of the environment and their experiences of the bushfires.

The project has been particularly therapeutic for the Theinerts. Werner Theinert told ABC Gippsland's Celine Foenander that fire raced through their Callignee property on Black Saturday but he and Ursula stayed and fought it all night and into the small hours of the morning.